


Never Quite Free

by anoncock



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen, Harry Potter AU, rantmas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 19:56:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1097992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anoncock/pseuds/anoncock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A 'what if Sherlock and John were teachers at Hogwarts'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For the Rant Post fic exchange.

“Welcome to the school, Professor Watson,” Holmes said.

“Thank you.” John looked around the office. He’d never been in the headmaster’s office when he was at Hogwarts. The only time he’d ever done anything to warrant the attention of the head had been in his final year, under Umbridge, she had never had access to the office though. It was definitely impressive.

“I believe you received all of the necessary information on school rules and protocol a week ago?”

“Yes, I got the owl.”

“Good. Good.” Holmes paused. “Everything is arranged for you and your classroom is prepared, although I regret to inform you that we have had some slight trouble with your accommodation. Usually, as I’m sure you’re aware, each member of staff is given reasonably sized private quarters, however there have been some small…issues.” Holmes looked away and coughed politely. “I have arranged for you to share quarters with another teacher, just temporarily of course, until we can arrange something more permanent.”

“I’ve probably slept in worse.”

“Yes, of course. I have organised for you to share rooms with the head of potions-,”

“Sherlock?” John interrupted. Holmes’ face barely twitched, but John could have sworn he saw a slightly curious expression for a second.

“You know him?”

“We met downstairs actually.” John thought of the strange man who’d been rushing out of the main doors as he’d been arriving. John had almost limped right past him. Then suddenly Sherlock had pivoted, his long robes swirling around him. He had then proceeded to rattle of a strange collection of personal information about John, turned up the collar of his robes and then dashed off outside into the grounds.

“Hmm?” Mycroft asked.

“Is he always like that?”

“Yes.” Holmes’ mouth twitched upwards the barest hint of a smile. “He’s always like that.”

-

John waved his wand to make his luggage float behind him, picked up his cane, and then limped off to find his quarters. After this he would have to go and find his office, and then figure out which classrooms he would be teaching in. He’d been a student of course, but that was 20 years ago now. He wouldn’t be surprised if some of the rooms had shuffled around since then. Several flights of stairs later John managed to find the apartment. He wasn’t in the best of moods, he’d forgotten just how many stairs there were in the bloody castle and when you were carrying a cane-, well, it wasn’t fun. He could have just levitated of course, but he wasn’t going to set a bad example for the children on his very first day back.

In front of him was a large black door. At the top, 221b was written in neat gold lettering. Below that there was a portrait in the centre of the door. It was empty. He stood there for a moment wondering what to do, but then he spotted Sherlock coming around the corner, headed towards him.

Sherlock smiled a small smile. “Sherlock Holmes." He held his hand out and John shook it.

"Hi, hello, John, we met downstairs."

“Obviously.”

“Headmaster Holmes informed me we would be sharing quarters for a bit."

Sherlock rolled his eyes.

"Interfering busybody. I'm not surprised." Sherlock walked up to the painting. “Look like Mrs Hudson’s out. Just yell, she never goes too far. Mrs Hudson!” Sherlock yelled. A couple of seconds later an elderly woman walked into the painting."“Mrs Hudson, this is Healer John Watson, he’s the new DADA teacher. He’s going to be staying here for a while.”

“Oh yes, I remember. Well feel free to go on in then dear, it’s nice to meet you. Nice to see you too, Sherlock.” She smiled and the painting swung open.

John ducked his head and stepped through into the apartment. He looked around. It was a nice size, and looked reasonably well furnished. If a little strange. There was a skull on the mantelpiece above the fire. And to be quite honest, it was a mess.

"Looks pretty decent, if we can get some of this clutter moved away. How long have you been staying here?" John asked. Sherlock had moved over to one of the chairs, one of the few that wasn’t completely covered in books or papers, and sat down.

"Oh, about two years."

Ah. Well, John was used to living with people who weren’t quite as tidy as he would like. He’d always been a reasonably tidy person and the muggle military had just ingrained the habit even further. But years of Hogwarts and the army had well prepared him for shared living space. They wouldn’t be sharing forever. Just a little while, until everything was sorted out.

“So, Holmes? Any relation to the headmaster?”

“Ugh. Brother.” Sherlock shuddered slightly. “The most dangerous man I have ever met.” Sherlock sat tapping his feet on the floor. Eventually he stood up and went to one of the large windows that looked out over the grounds. John thought about what Sherlock had said about Holmes and wondered.

“He works as the head of a school though,” John said.

“Don’t be an idiot, John. The headmaster of Hogwarts wields an extremely large amount of power. Every young wizard in England comes here. He has control over all of them.” Sherlock peered outside through the window at the small figures below.

John stood there a bit awkwardly, then rested his cane against the nearest table and sat down in the closest chair. He picked up a yellowing Daily Prophet. He could poke around the apartment later.

-

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately depending on your point of view, John’s peace and quiet didn’t last very long.

-

A grey haired serious man from the auror office burst into the apartment.

-

“Will you come?”

-

“That was amazing. I thought you were a teacher?” John said incredulously. Sherlock smiled.

“Teaching is my, let’s call it a second job, a pastime. Mostly I’m consulting detective, the only one in the world.”

-

“Don’t trust him. He’s a sociopath. I know he was a Ravenclaw but don’t let him trick you. Potter picked his house you know, everyone knows that. The Sorting Hat really lets you decide where you want to end up.”

-

“Hold onto me,” Sherlock said hurriedly. John grabbed onto his cloak and then in the blink of an eye, Sherlock disapperated.

-

“Sherlock!”

John looked through the glass window. It was Sherlock, and the killer they’d been chasing. He saw Sherlock begin to raise the vial of potion to his lips. John raised his arm and pointed his wand at the two figures in the other building.

-

“Don’t worry, there are always a few elves in the kitchen, at least until two in the morning.”

“Sherlock, we’re supposed to be teachers, setting an example-, okay, wait, alright, I’m coming.”

“You know you can always tell which oven makes the best food from the lower half of the door handle-,”

-

A few hours later, John was sitting on a bench in one of the Herbology greenhouses. He wasn’t quite sure what time it was but it was pretty damn late . And really he should have been in bed. Especially after the whirlwind that was Sherlock Holmes. A few aurors dashing into their apartment. Following Sherlock, apparating all over London. Murders, chases. The first time he’d used the killing curse since he’d gotten back from Afghanistan. John had always hoped he’d never have to use it again, but he’d been realistic. He’d accepted that he might have to one day. He just really hadn’t expected it to be on his first day of a teaching job.

He hadn’t really expected Hogwarts to be safe, but he hadn’t quite expected this either. He didn’t know what he’d expected. Just some escape from monotonous grey that had plagued him ever since he’d returned from overseas. Ever since the battle of Hogwarts really, if you wanted to take it that far back.

After the blood and the desert sands, after coming back…after sleeping lightly, waking frequently. After spending all his time staring at the same four walls, the monotony only broken by the occasional visits to his muggle therapist, he’d just wanted something, anything, to make him feel real again. He had been a ghost. It was funny the way muggles used that word sometimes. As in barely there, half gone. None of the ghosts John had actually met had been like that. Not Nearly Headless Nick, definitely not Moaning Myrtle.

John cast an eye around the plants. Most were familiar enough to him. There was a faintly glowing plant in the corner that he didn’t recognise. He wondered what it was. He’d always liked Herbology, pretty much a requisite for becoming a Healer. He studied for a few more seconds but then gave up. He could always ask Longbottom.

The plant cast a warm glow over everything. It wasn’t quite peaceful, not with the all of the different plants moving and clicking. But it was warm, it was away from the crowds and it was strangely comforting. John had always liked it here.

He heard the glass doors slide open behind him and turned his head. The figure opened the glass door and then stopped short.

“Lumos,” the man whispered, and then paused. “Oh, John isn’t it?”

“Yeah, Neville right?”

“Oh yeah, you’re the new DA teacher. I’m pretty sure Holmes said. What are you doing down here at this time of night?”

“I always used to come down here when I needed some space. In the last few years of school.”

“It was always pretty hectic.” Neville smiled.

“I think that’s putting it mildly.”

“I was just coming to check on the Firelily over there. You know, they’re very difficult to actually kill, but if you want to get the full effect you do have to put the effort in.”

“Sorry, I should go,” John said.

“It’s alright. You don’t have to. We’re teachers now. Not like I can bust you for being out of bed.”

“No, it’s okay, I probably should get back to bed anyway.”

“Sure,” Neville said, moving towards the Firelily. “If you just give me a few minutes here though I’ll walk back up to the castle with you.”

“Okay.”

John watched as Neville pulled out his wand and muttered a few spells under his breath. The light from the plant flared a little and then died back down again.

“Okay, done, let’s go.” Neville smiled and they headed out of the greenhouse and back towards the castle. “How’s life? I heard you joined the muggle military.”

“There are wizards in Afghanistan, you know. The muggles army, there are lots of good people there. They’re brave. They could do with a little protection and magical healing.”

“I’d have thought-, what about Misuse of Magic and stuff?”

“From what I can tell, there are always a few wizards in the muggle army. It’s not really official. As long as you only attack other wizards with your wand and keep the healing on the down low, they’ll let it slide.”

“I never knew that. So how’s life back at Hogwarts treating you so far?”

John snorted and shook his head.

“Well I’ll I’ve only been back a day and I’ve spent it apparating around chasing a murderer.”

Neville laughed.

“Sherlock.” It wasn’t a question.

“Does this happen often?” John asked. He wondered what he’d gotten himself into. He also wondered about Headmaster Holmes, and wondered if perhaps his quarters not being ready in time wasn’t quite the accident Holmes had made it out to be.

“When you’re with Sherlock Holmes, yes.”

“I’m sharing quarters with him.”

“Oh God.” Neville chuckled. “How’s that? Hellish, I would imagine.”

“I’ve only known him a day.”

“Okay, well, see what you say in a few months. He’s definitely-, I’m not sure what the right word is. Unique, I guess.” Neville smiled and shook his head. “Well, at least your first day wasn’t boring. After I finally finished my NEWTs I pretty much went straight into working at Hogwarts. It feels like I’ve spent all of my life here.”

“After, you know, everything that happened, I couldn’t stay. I just-,”

“I know what you mean. It was hard, especially at first.” Neville smiled a sad smile. “Even now…sometimes. You were the year above me, but you came back for the battle of Hogwarts. You were there. You know.”

John tried to smile. “Yeah.” There are some things you just don’t get out of your head, ever. People with limbs missing. The first time you kill someone. The lines of bodies in the Great Hall.

John and Neville fell into an awkward silence as they walked back up to the courtyard. They arrived at the main doors, John waved his wand to open them and they went through into the main entrance hall.

“Well, I’m off, back to the Gryffindor dorms. One of the duties of being head of house, you have to be close.”

“Alright, I’ll see you at breakfast maybe?”

“Yeah.” Neville smiled and then started to head off.

“You know what we were talking about earlier-,” John began, and Neville paused and looked back. “To be honest, I think it’s a miracle our generation has turned out as normal as we have. What with all the shit we went through.”

Neville gave him a sad smile. “Yeah. It’s like, I know Gryffidors are supposed to be brave. I did a lot of stuff when I was younger. With Harry and the year leading up to the Battle. You know. Everyone knows. I know lots of people still talk about it.” Neville shook his head. “I know the kids I teach talk about it. But, sometimes I feel like maybe I had a set amount of bravery. Courage. And I used it all up.” Neville looked down. “Do you ever get that?”

“Yeah. I know what you mean.” John turned around and headed back up to bed.


	2. Chapter 2

Several months passed. John found that he actually settled into teaching pretty easily. The kids in his class are mostly good. Really annoying a lot of the time, of course, but mostly okay kids. The staff members are generally pretty friendly too. Aside from Sherlock, he’s probably closest to Mrs Hudson. She has a portrait inside the apartment as well as on the front door, and she likes to come and have tea with him and listen to him read the terrible gossip section of the Daily Prophet. He wonders what it says about him that his two closest friends are a crazy detective and an old woman in a painting.

He doesn’t use the cane to walk with anymore. He hasn’t needed it, not since that first night.

He’s still living with Sherlock though. God help him.

Holmes the elder actually did offer to move John to his own quarters a few months ago. John declined. He's mostly glad he made that decision, he’s helped Sherlock with a fair number of cases and he enjoys chasing after criminals. Sherlock seems to value his medical knowledge, his fighting knowledge, and occasionally his muggle knowledge. With Sherlock, it’s never dull.

Although… there are some days he really wishes he could just take it back and move out.

Like the time he found the head in the icebox. A human head. In the icebox. Nestled amongst John’s bottles of Butterbeer. Or like the time when he came into the apartment to find Sherlock with his wand out, blasting at the walls. Or the horrific sounds Sherlock makes on his violin sometimes when he’s bored.

John usually writes up the cases after they’re finished with them, it’s fun and gives him something to do. He’s been thinking of sending them in, to the Daily Prophet. It’s got to make a more interesting column than the one he was reading to Mrs Hudson the other day. It was about the colour robes you should wear to avoid clashes with your skin tone.

But despite it all, living with Sherlock was actually pretty good. Until they got the letter.

 

-

Well, Lestrade and the auror office got it first. It had Sherlock Holmes written on it, in neat blue handwriting. Sherlock carefully slitted it open with a letter opener. Inside was a blank piece of parchment. But John recognised it. From their first case. A Study in Pink, as he called it in his write up.

As soon as Sherlock unrolled it a voice began speaking. They could hear the sound of the victim sobbing. The case began.

Sherlock fell into the case like he usually did. Completely absorbed. John didn’t quite manage it. Something felt different. They were being taunted. Made to run around, like mice in a cage.

If John noticed he knows Sherlock must have noticed too. John didn’t have much time to think about it though, they were on the clock, dashing around as fast as they could so that someone didn’t die. They succeeded. Until they didn’t. The old woman died. The next voice coming from the parchment was a kid. Charlie McDonald. Eleven years old. A Hufflepuff.

They solved the mystery and found him crying in the middle of the Forbidden Forrest, held in place with some nasty spells. John and the rest of Lestrade’s team worked on dismantling the curses. Even Mycroft Holmes was there.

Sherlock Holmes was not there.

 

-

John walked in the door and Sherlock was sitting in his favourite chair with his fingers steepled under his chin. John's been angry with Sherlock before. Anyone who knows Sherlock would not be surprised at that fact. Normally though, John is able to get a better lid on it.

Normally. But he's just spent the better part of an hour talking to and calming down a very scared little kid. He's not in the mood. John managed to keep a lid on it for a while but then Sherlock was being his usual self and he exploded.

“There are lives at stake, Sherlock!” John took a deep breath, to calm himself. It didn’t work. “Charlie, you know him, you see him every week! You’re his teacher. Do you even care, at all?”

“Would it have helped me save him?” Sherlock looked at him. He didn’t look the slightest bit worried, not even a little perturbed.

“No.”

“I teach Potions because I get access to a fully stocked store cupboard and a place to do all of my experiments. _Important_ work, John. I don’t have time to care about every student that takes one of my classes.”

John wanted to punch him. He turned his back on Sherlock and reached for his coat to go out of the door.

“I’ve made you angry.” John turned back around and Sherlock seemed to take John’s expression as confirmation. “Don’t make people into heroes John, they don’t exist. Even if they did, I wouldn’t be one of them. You know I was never a Gryffindor.” Sherlock’s lip curled and he sneered.

John turned around and walked out of the apartment, still fuming. He walked around randomly for a while, and then decided it would do him good to go down for a walk in the grounds.

He made it down two flights of stairs. Something hit his back andJohn felt the spell wash over him. He tried to fight it but he knew he was losing the battle to stay conscious. The last thing he thought, before he went under, was that he’d really thought the whole DADA curse thing was just a myth.

 

-

John woke up. It was dark and he was lying down with his face in a puddle of water. He lifted his head and looked around. Dungeons. Great. Always the dungeons.  And…huh. The chamber of secrets, if he was not mistaken. He thought they’d blocked those up. A young man in formal robes stood over him, his wand pointed at John’s face. John looked around and spotted the tip of his own wand sticking out of a pocket inside the man’s robes.

“Moriarty, hi.”

John opened his mouth to speak but found he couldn’t. He tried to think quickly about what spell it could be and how to counter it.

“Hush now John, don’t worry. You’ll see your friend soon enough.” Moriarty smiled. “Imperio.”

-

The curse was strong. John tried to fight it, but it was difficult. It was just so easy to go along with the suggestions in his ear. He saw Sherlock arrive and then heard himself saying Moriarty’s words.

Sherlock had his wand out. It was strange seeing that, Sherlock didn’t actually use it that much John had found. Sherlock liked to rely on his own deductive powers, his brain, not his wand. Oh, he knew enough to know what spells could leave what traces on a person but he didn’t use magic nearly as much you might think.

After a while Moriarty stepped out of the shadows, and then Sherlock and Moriarty began to talk with each other.

John still felt Moriarty’s curse on him, but when his focus shifted to Sherlock, John felt the pressure ease slightly. It was suddenly much easier to ignore the whispers.

_Stay where you are._

It felt right and easy for him to do that, to just stay put. But there was a small, growing part of John that was awake. That wasn't quite sure it wanted to stay still.

_Hey, I don’t think I will stay still. I think I’d quite like to move now, actually._

John leapt at Moriarty and managed to get his arms around his neck. He grabbed for the inside pocket of Moriarty’s robes, and managed to pull out his wand. He shoved Moriarty forward, stepped back and then lifted his wand into a defensive position. John’s hand was steady. Moriarty laughed.

“You kill me, the whole school goes up.”

Sherlock scoffed and smirked. “I’m sure.”

“Well maybe not all of it, who can tell what spells are in place on every single brick in this castle. But I assure you, the towers will come down and a large portion of the Great Hall will, I’m sorry to say, no longer exist. I can’t gurantee that everybody will die unfortunately, but most of them will.

“What stops us from just stunning you and knocking you out?” John said roughly.

“Please John. Do you really think I would have allowed you to be down here with your wands if I hadn’t already placed a few spells on them of my own?” John and Sherlock dropped their wands quickly. Moriarty grinned. Sherlock looked at John.

John tried to think quickly. There was a way-, he couldn’t be sure it would work. Maybe it would cause the spells to activate, and he wasn’t sure if he could even still do it. But he had no other choice. John concentrated on what he wanted to do.

Moriarty dropped to the floor.

Sherlock looked shocked, the first time John had ever seen that look on his face before. He shot an enquiring look at John. But before John could explain Sherlock had already jumped to the right conclusion.

“You are proficient at nonverbal spells.”

“Well, I wouldn’t really say _proficient,_ but it’s always useful to know a few non-verbal spells.” Especially in the army. It really did come in handy to be able to do magic without your wand, in case you were tied up and captured. Sherlock nodded.

“It’s over now then.” Sherlock shot a serious look at John. John’s mouth quirked up and suddenly he found he was giggling.

“Yep.”

Sherlock started laughing too. They stood there laughing together, the sound echoing around the chamber. John shook his head. He was in, what was probably the legendary chamber of secrets, with water dripping on his head and soaking into his shoes. And he was laughing with a madman, after they had just confronted psychopath. It was strange. But it was the most alive he’d felt in a long time.

 

-

That wasn’t the end of it, of course. John and Sherlock had a conversation with Mycroft in his office about everything that had happened. It left John feeling almost like a schoolboy. But Mycroft did thank them, and John could tell he was grateful. However much Mycroft and Sherlock would bicker about power hungriness, Mycroft did care about the school. The headmaster’s office and all of the past headmasters had accepted him. John thought that was pretty unlikely to happen unless the person in the position was a good person. John looked up at the paintings. All of the old headmasters. Some of the old headmasters were writing or sleeping, one was even, to John’s surprise, trimming his beard. Some were paying attention though. Just as John left, he could have sworn he saw Dumbledore wink at him.

Moriarty was taken away by Lestrade. They kept him unconscious until a team had managed to look round Hogwarts, to find the spells he claimed to have left. They were real. He overheard Sally telling Lestrade that they would have caused a lot of damage. John didn’t like to think about it. If Moriarty could create spells so powerful that they could actually take down the school-, well John was glad that they’d seen the back of him.

 

-

John headed into the Great Hall to grab breakfast and walked up to the high table. Binns, Longbottom and Sherlock were already there. It was a surprise to see Sherlock at the table, it was rare to see him eat at all. John slipped into a chair next to Sherlock and helped himself to kippers and orange juice. Sherlock had the paper spread out in front of him.

“Hey.”

Sherlock nodded. “Morning.” He scanned John up and down. “I see you have the fourth years in twenty minutes.” John nodded. “Please be sure to remind Barnsley to bring his bronze scales, size _three_. He tends to forgets and brings the wrong size. Then he spends the whole class sharing with Hastings, and for some reason those two never manage to share without annoying each other.”

“Okay, I will,” John agreed, as he tucked into his breakfast.

Further down the table Longbottom finished, got up and then walked over to John and clapped him on the shoulder.

“So, I hear you and Sherlock here chased down a murderer and stopped him destroying the school?”

“Yeah, I guess that pretty much sums it up,” John said.

Neville laughed. “Well, I’ve got to dash, but nice work.” Neville gave him a thumbs up, and then walked away, still chuckling.

John finished his kippers in a comfortable silence. “Right, well I’m off to class now. Never thought I’d say that again, once I’d finished my N.E.W.Ts.

“Yes, yes. I’ll see you later then.”

John got up and headed off to the sixth floor. He thought about the DADA curse. It occurred to him that he hadn’t even been at Hogwarts a year yet, and there was still plenty of time for something to happen that would make him leave. But after all of the shit with Moriarty, with Sherlock at his side, John was feeling pretty confident. Fuck the curse, he was here to stay.

 

_some time later_

“Sherlock!” John yelled up the stairs.

“What?”

“We’re in the paper, they decided to publish one of my stories.” He heard thumping upstairs and then Sherlock stomped down the stairs in his pyjamas and a blue dressing gown. He snatched the paper from John’s hands and skimmed it.

“Ugh, really John? A Study in Pink?”

“I thought it fit. There was a lot of pink, after all.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes and the flopped down into the nearest chair. John waited to see if there was going to be any further reaction. When none was forthcoming, he turned around and headed into the kitchen to make tea.

“One sugar please,” Sherlock called to him, just as John was leaving the room.

John grinned.

 


End file.
